Mobile storage solutions have become very popular in the past few years. End users are now wanting to take their photos, music, documents and more with them on the go. Laptops make this possible to a certain extent, but even then, you may simply run out of storage space. Flash drives are a temporary solution to this problem, but the lack of capacity still presents an issue for many. If you fall into this category, you might want to consider an external hard drive enclosure. Simply install a hard drive inside the unit and take it with you on the go. Today we will be taking a look at two external HDD enclosures from Vantec. Both are NexStar SX enclosures, with the only difference being the interface: one is IDE and the other is SATA.



Both drives come in the same standard packaging; only the color (of the box and the enclosure) are different. Below are the specs of the enclosures. Specs are identical between the two, except for the interface, so I will only be showing the IDE drive specs.




I will be taking a look at each of these drives in detail. First I will cover the IDE version, then move along to the SATA model.